GeForce 8800 GT Mega Heatsink Roundup @ [H]

[Deviationer]

nice roundup, but no video card heatsink is worth it unless it ports the air outside the case. Which is why I haven't upgraded mine yet, no after market heatsinks port the air outside, they just recycle it inside.

 

[jon67]

Excellent useful review, and fascinating to see how that VF-900 keeps up with new heatsinks twice as big and heavy. Got a couple of them on some older cards, nice to know that they work on newer cards as well. Otherwise, I agree with the above poster and really miss the AC Silencer type of VGA coolers that blew the hot air out in the back. Now even AC has dismissed that approach, while the OEM coolers on the hi-end cards still use it.

I noticed that the Intel stock cooler gets a mentioning on the conclusions page (1st paragraph under best value - high speed). Surely a typo, but it would be cool to try and adapt one to a vid card and see how it worked - after all, it's smaller and lighter than some VGA coolers

 

[anthrex]

how easy it to replace your stock heatsink with an aftermarket one? let's say in relation to a cpu heatsink (and back plate) I always feel so scared when thinking about changing the heatsink for a video card

 

[DesertCat]

Nice to see how things stack up. It was pretty easy to move my Zalman VF900 from the old 7900GT over to my new 8800GT. It's great that changing out my cooler basically added very little to the cost of my new graphics card. The one expense was getting some heatsinks for the mosfets but that wasn't too bad. Even with proper cleaning (which I agree is important), I found that I needed to be real careful on handling the card during the install so as to not knock off the mosfet sinks. The Swiftech thermal tape is just barely sticky enough at room temperature. The thing is, however, that once things heat up the tape becomes stickier (actually becomes a bit gooey) and makes a good bond. I actually just used an extra zalman blue ram sink on one cluster of 3 mosfets. Seems to work well enough.

 

[Bo_Fox]

The largest one yet (although not yet verified with EVERYTHING out there like Thermalright V1-Ultra, Gigabyte V-Power, etc..)

here: http://www.geforce9.com/cooling.php

 

[The Cranky one]

Gonna re-use mu cu-900 on my new card i reckon. FREE aint bad to be honest.

 

[monkeynetman]

Hey there I was looking at the ZEROtherm HC92, it looks like it's blowing towards the front of the case, do you think that would impact ambiance performance?

 

[MichiganTeddyBear]

excellent article.

I am glad to see someone putting up a visual indication of how flat the heat sink surface is. Never realized it was as simple as some graph paper with some straight lines.. Excellent solution, and one easy enough for a doubting thomas to duplicate.

I really dislike the various other reviews of heatsinks I read that says something like this "the surface was shiny, and appeared flat, we like it!".

Obviously the best measurements would be done with lab equipment designed to do that, but then again, you cant really publish the results as easily (a pic is worth 1000 words afterall).

 

[Ihaveworms]

That thermalright heatsink takes up an insane amount of slots with a fan. Makes SLI + soundcard impossible

 

[Multiplectic]

I know it might be a little selfish to ask you guys this, but, could you do a little quick test with the VF700Cu? I'd like to see if my current VF700Cu could do a better job than the stock cooler does (maybe it'll be useful to a lot of people too).
I mean, if you really can. If it's too much of a trouble, nevermind.
I know "time" isn't a thing you guys could spare.

Thanks anyways! Great article!

 

[Impulse]

Was the stock cooler on the review the original one or the recently modified version with the larger fan? I'm guessing the original one judging from when Kyle said the article was started... I'm not even sure if NVidia really re-designed it or if it's just XFX and other manufacturers tweaking the refference design some, but there's a few posts on the boards about it.

Might be worthwhile to just track down a card that has it instead of buying any card along w/an aftermarket cooler, for anyone not in a hurry to get an 8800GT. Altho some of the better aftermarket ones will still drop the temp quite a bit I'm sure, the larger fan just seems to cut down on the noise while maintaining similar temps.

 

[Viperlover]

Just an idea, but do you think that the hr03 would be able to wrap around the card in the slot next to it? Something like a soundcard?

 

[BloodyIron]

the zalman 1000 has my vote of confidence. great temps, and only one slot cooling solution! (from what i can tell?)

also, this test is fucking awesome. thank you [H] for bigging up. can we have one for GTX/Ultra pls? DD

 

[yujie]

On your charts, is the HR03GT facing the front or back?

 

[Teecee]

Great review guys. Thank you for the hard work. Don't let them give you too hard of a time about the S1. If you included it then they would be complaining about something else.

 

[jamiewa]

I've already purchased a Zalman 900cu, and was thinking of picking up the new 8800 GTS 512mb. Does anyone know if this cooler will fit this card?

 

[Jaguar Jim1]

the zalman 1000 has my vote of confidence. great temps, and only one slot cooling solution! (from what i can tell?)

also, this test is fucking awesome. thank you [H] for bigging up. can we have one for GTX/Ultra pls? DD

From What I have Gathered from around the Web, there isn't a better solution out for the GTX/Ultra's as Nvidia has designed an excellent solution, and it would take some serious designing to impliment a better one.

 

[Fenris_Ulf]

Great review. First thing I did when purchasing my 8800GT was buy a HR-03. Unfortuneately, I got the original (the GT model hadn't been released yet). I ended up drilling new holes in the mounting bracket and mounting the thumbscrews in backward so they would fit. I used an inaudible 92mm 24v 0.1A (at 12v) Panaflow that is completely silent. Now I'm satisfied - temperatures are maxed at 40C with no extra noise. It takes up alot of space, but my everyday box doesn't really use the extra slots anyway. I chose the Thermalright because I'm using one of their northbridge chipset coolers on an AMD BE-2350 and it works great. I figured if their NB coolers were overbuilt enough to handle a CPU, the HR-03 would probably be overkill as well.

 

[Atech]

Dang, none of the coolers work like NVsilencer 5...sucking in air, cooling and the EXHAUSTING the hot air OUT of the cabinet...future review?

 

[MrWizard6600]

" This is a very quiet office where a simple pin drop can be heard."

 

[Spare-Flair]

Kyle or Brent,

This is a great review and what many of us have been looking for but I have a suggestion to make. In the review, you completely neglected something very important for 3rd party coolers which is a direct side-on profile picture of the cooler installed onto the card. Yes you provide physical dimension numbers but it's much easier to provide a picture so that people may judge how much clearance each cooler requires in case they have clearance issues directly under the card (some look like they might be too large for SLI) or some other hardware constraints or other cooling ideas so that they can know if the card will fit including comparison-shots with the reference single-slot design.

It would be nice if you could include these pictures into your review or consider their inclusion into any future reviews.

 

[pc299]

Dang, none of the coolers work like NVsilencer 5...sucking in air, cooling and the EXHAUSTING the hot air OUT of the cabinet...future review?

I agree... I wish the Thermaltake TMG ND1 had been included... I've seen a decent number of people using it, and it would be the only 3rd party solution I'd recommend to anyone, seeing how it vents air directly out the back instead of dumping it back into your case.

 

[CopyCat]

Awesome

I remember mentioning doing this review when you guys did the heatsink review, great to see you were either already working on it or had finished it by that time

I slapped a Thermalright HR-03 Plus w/ 120 fan on my 8800GTX and it knocked almost 30 degrees of my load temps, CRAZY!

 

[skittzle]

Great review as always guys!!

I went with the Zalman VF-1000 for my 8800GT. I am awaiting its arrival.

 

[FrgMstr]

Kyle or Brent,

This is a great review and what many of us have been looking for but I have a suggestion to make. In the review, you completely neglected something very important for 3rd party coolers which is a direct side-on profile picture of the cooler installed onto the card. Yes you provide physical dimension numbers but it's much easier to provide a picture so that people may judge how much clearance each cooler requires in case they have clearance issues directly under the card (some look like they might be too large for SLI) or some other hardware constraints or other cooling ideas so that they can know if the card will fit including comparison-shots with the reference single-slot design.

It would be nice if you could include these pictures into your review or consider their inclusion into any future reviews.

Marc and I discussed this exact point yesterday and it will be done on all new testing going forward.

 

[FrgMstr]

We will also be doing a follow up with the AC S1 as requested. But please do keep in mind the ONLY reason this cooler was not included what that AC told us specifically it would not fit in early November. Once we had our data they changed their minds on this.

 

[rbanzai]

Neat review. I was interested because I'm getting a new PC for my gamer father who is turning 70 in January, and it will have an 8800GT. I want him to have a quieter PC than his current damn noisy old Alienware box. I'll be testing the system before packing it up for his birthday so I can judge if it will need one of these coolers.

The S1 is nifty but huge, so I'm thinking of keeping an eye on that Zalman 900. Will I need any supplies other than what comes with it? I haven't modified peripherals before and I suspect the instructions are pretty bare.

 

[Zap]

Great review! I think GPU coolers are more pertinent now to review than CPU coolers because just about any tower heatpipe CPU heatsink/fan can work for even decent overclocking these days.

 

[farfromhome]

And it does seem to be one of the most popularly discussed ones in your forum which should be more than enough to override what they [AC] said to you.

Kyle already explained; they started the testing before the 8800 GT was even released, much less talked about with respect to the alternate coolers, on the forums. By the time it was being talked about (probably just a couple of days before AC gave the OK directly to the [H] anyway), it was too late to be included in the review.

 

[Rob94hawk]

Already bought the Thermalright HR-03 GT heatsink a month ago. Worth every penny.

 

[Atech]

While you´re at it, include the NV Silencer5 Rev.3 as well. It fits. It works great. The VRMs on the card are not cooled by it, but apparently they do not get warm on the 8800GT at all.
Several people are using this cooler with great success. And its cheap too, around 8Euros over here.

Oh, and BTW, the HR03 is waaaay overpriced. The Accelero S1 beats it without any problems, for less than half the price.

I would love to se the NV Silencer5 Rev.3 added to the review....alongside with ambient and case temps.
What good is a cool GPU if the temp inside your case goes up by 15C?

 

[ring.of.steel]

While you´re at it, include the NV Silencer5 Rev.3 as well. It fits. It works great. The VRMs on the card are not cooled by it, but apparently they do not get warm on the 8800GT at all.
Several people are using this cooler with great success. And its cheap too, around 8Euros over here.

Oh, and BTW, the HR03 is waaaay overpriced. The Accelero S1 beats it without any problems, for less than half the price.

Dint know people still used the NV Silencer series

 

[Atech]

Dint know people still used the NV Silencer series

Some of us don't like just whipping hot air around inside the case

 

[ring.of.steel]

Some of us don't like just whipping hot air around inside the case

Just noticed my brother has one on his 6800

 

[Atech]

Just noticed my brother has one on his 6800

I have had one too...and if I get my way both my PhysX and 8800GT will get a NV silencer5 Rev.3 as replacments for their stock coolers....the NV silencer is both very good at cooling..and very low noise

 

[ring.of.steel]

Is it really needed on the physx?

 

[afunguy25]

Where can I find the Thermalright HR-03 GT at for the right price?

 

[Atech]

Is it really needed on the physx?

Needed...no.
Better airflow...yes.
Better case temps....yes

 

[flawedexistence]

I liked this review a lot. It is very timely as the 8800GT is obviously the card of choice right now. Keep up the good work guys.

 

[Bo_Fox]

LOL!

I love the part of the review conclusion where coolers are awarded in specific categories, not just overall like with other reviews. My favorite part was the "coolest-looking" award, which went to Zerotherm's Hurricane HC92 (although it is a little subjective)! Awesome, man!